Bio:After becoming disillusioned with Adolf Hitler's ideas for the Ayaran race, Erskine fled Germany for the United States where he continued his work for a "super-soldier serum." Given the code-name "Dr. Reinstein" Erksine led Operation: Rebirth, evidently financed by President Roosevelt before America entered World War II. This project's center was located in a gloomy-looking curio shop on a side-street, evidently in Washington. It took months to find the proper 4F specimen whose body would react well with the tissue-building formulae. This experiment had been so well-guarded that only Erskine knew the formulae and he comitted it to memory. There were no written notes for enemy agents to steal... or so it was thought. Actually, he had written it down, only to destroy it afterwards, and at least one enemy agent did get a glimpse of it. However, Erskine later realized the formula would make one mentally unstable without "vita-rays" he invented to stabilize the process.

Unfortunately, despite the unprecendented security, a Gestapo spy broke in and killed Erskine after Rogers became, under the influence of the chemical, a well-muscled paragon of humanity. Rogers killed the Gestapo spy and the U.S. government, finding they had spent all that money to create one superlative soldier, decided to make him into a living propaganda figure and fighter for freedom, called Captain America.